Holy Bible

Five lessons The Lord has taught me in 65 years – Zac Poonen (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBVbS5JgCEA)

“By the grace of God, we have entered the new year.
At the beginning of the year, I could wish you many years, but I don’t know if it’s the right thing to say.
I don’t know if some of you wish for many years, I don’t know if the multitude of years with their burdens would be a blessing for us.
So I leave the multitude of years in God’s hands this time too.
I could wish you a better year, but I don’t know if a better year is possible, and I don’t know if what we understand by a better year really means good for us.
Of course, for any Christian, the go-to wish is ‘A blessed New Year’. It’s a beautiful phrase, and we all desire God’s blessing, but God’s blessing doesn’t just depend on a wish someone makes, or an ‘Amen’ someone says after blessings, or a ‘Lord help, so be it’.
I thought that at the beginning of this year I would wish you a year lived according to the model of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Maybe some of you are wondering, well, what about the health I wish for myself, the relationship improvements I’m thinking about, what about the financial aspect I’m thinking about, or many other struggles.
My dear, why do I wish you a year lived according to the model of the Lord Jesus Christ?
When we live as our Savior lived, our health, our protection, our strength, our wisdom, everything concerning this world and the spiritual world, is in God’s hands, and if we please the Father in every aspect of our lives, then He will take care to give us the health we need, He will give us the material resources we need.
He, and He alone, can give us the spiritual resources we’ll need this year to overcome every temptation and win every battle against the evil one.
What I would recommend for this year isn’t very simple, but not too complicated either.
Open the Scripture.
Carefully observe the life of the Lord Jesus Christ every day; watch Him in His time of prayer, watch Him as He teaches, and see what He did when He met with hungry people, with poor people, with needy people.
Perhaps we should also look at how He acted when encountering hypocrites or those indifferent to the Kingdom of God.
Come now, let the idea of following in the footsteps of the Lord Jesus Christ and imitating the Son of God not be just a Christian slogan or a goal reserved only for those with a certain level of spirituality.
For this year, I propose to you—and to myself—that we look more closely at the Lord Jesus Christ, asking the Holy Spirit to guide us into all truth and to help us fulfill the Father’s will just as the Savior did daily, in every situation.
And then, when we are always pleasing to the Father, rest assured that we will be blessed both with what we need here on earth and with the blessings that prepare us for eternity.
Right?
Whether we like it or not?
But we should like it.
This year will bring us closer to eternity.
We will be closer to our meeting with the Creator.
If we are, and I suspect most of us are, disciples of Christ and have a good relationship with Him, we should continue our race with more boldness, but also with more care, with more joy, and always testifying to what the Lord Jesus Christ means to us, what He brought us through His coming into the world, and what He is preparing for us through His departure into glory.
If you are one of those who know much about the Son of God, who could explain in detail how He came into the world, what He did here, and how He ascended to heaven, but you do not yet have a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, if you have not yet confessed Him publicly or entered into a covenant with Him.
I plead with you from the bottom of my heart, now at the beginning of the year: be reconciled to God.
The Apostle Paul said, as if God were appealing through us, we implore you in the name of Christ, be reconciled to God.
The wise Solomon said that it is good to remember God in the days of our youth. And he was absolutely right.
Yet, not all of us are young anymore, and perhaps you too are no longer as young as you once were, to be able to say, ‘I will reconcile with God in my youth.’
I would like to take Solomon’s idea and place it in this context: if he urged you to think about reconciliation with God as early as possible in life, I want to urge you to think about it as soon as possible, right now, at the beginning of this year.
Perhaps God will grant you this entire year, or perhaps many years to come. How beautiful it would be to remember that at the start of this year, the most important thing you did was to reconcile with God and strengthen your relationship with Him—to reach a point in your walk with God that is truly Biblical and pleasing to our Heavenly Father.
I don’t know if you’ve made time for this, but who knows?
Perhaps God has placed you in a position to hear this message because you are one of those we call ‘prodigal sons’.
You know what I mean… You once knew God, you tasted His goodness, you rejoiced in the church and with your family around Christ. Then, for reasons unknown, much like some disciples of old who found a certain teaching difficult, or perhaps because the bad seeds of this world took root and choked the Word of God, you drifted away.
Listen to me, it truly doesn’t matter what caused your relationship with God to grow cold or what made you leave the House of God. Do you know what would be beautiful at the start of this year? Do you know what would bring joy to the Church of Christ, to your family, to your loved ones, and especially to the Son of God? It would be for you to come home.
You don’t have to change through your own strength. Come back just as you are and ask God to change you, so that you may begin a new year with a renewed life. This is an extraordinary thing for the saved, for the lost, and for the sinner alike.
What a joy it is to tell you at the start of this new year that God’s goodness remains the same, but yes, it’s true, it calls us to repentance, to a holy life, so that God may bless us and then use us to bless others. Once again, live this year, for as long as it lasts, learning from the Lord Jesus Christ, a beautiful relationship with the Father, a beautiful human relationship with our neighbors, and preparing for His glorious return.
As it was with Jesus, so let it be with us!”

New Year’s message, pastor Viorel Iuga (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGZwmf4KPR8)